The Yoruba traditional medicine practitioners deserve a scholarly attention for three reasons: their depth and dexterity of language use, their popularity among the people, and their relevance to the contemporary Yoruba society as alternative health service providers. The prohibitive cost and declining potency of western drugs in the treatment of certain life threatening ailments have made herbal medicine a popular and essential part of our healthcare delivery system. While advertising their wares, the local herb dealers, through deft linguistic manipulations, tell people about the various health conditions that their local herbs can effectively control. They also tell people that serious ailments such as hypertension eje ridu, diabetes atogbe, cancer jejere etc. are associated with affluence, while the less deadly ailments (low erection idakole, veneral diseases atosi etc.) are common among the sexually incontinent. For hemorrhoid jedijedi, it affects the rich and the poor alike. Hence, the stock expression jedi o m’Akowe1 “hemorrhoid does not respect even the educated elite” by which they are known and identified. The happy news, they will impress on their audience, is that the medicines are potent and affordable.

The prohibitive cost of western drugs and their seeming declining potency have sensitized people to seek alternative therapy in the treatment of the above-mentioned health conditions. Today, a large number of hitherto obscure local herb dealers throng the major streets, road junctions, and market centers in big Yoruba cities like Lagos, Ibadan etc. hawking their wares with microphones in their hands and loud speakers mounted on top of their cars. They are now very popular and constitute an essential part of our healthcare delivery system.